dave2198:Adolf Oliver Nipples: ongbok: DrBrownCow: Igor Jakovsky: The most expensive one I ever had was a '89 Ken Griffey Jr Upper Deck card. I collected when I was a kid in the '80s. My favorite player back then was Roger Clemens, I bet I had 50 of his early cards. I guess I picked the wrong horse to hitch that wagon too.

/Upper Deck was the shiat back in the day.

I was collecting at about the same time. I had a few of those Upper Deck Griffey Jr. cards and sold all but one of them for 50 dollars each ungraded. I wish I could say I took the money and invested it, but at the time I was in graduate school and needed gas money to drive home and see my girlfriend.

Those 80s and early 90s cards aren't worth jack. Most people won't even take them for free. I had about 20,000 cards. I went through them with a price guide, cherry picked the best cards and put them into one 5 inch binder. The rest of the cards I set out in a box in my alley the day before junk collection day and somebody took them.

And just for that reason when your grand kids are around 10 or twelve those 80's and 90's card will now be rare and worth some good money. And when you tell your grand kids that you had about 20k of them and threw them out, they will ready to kick your old ass.

Things are different now. That was true when it was your dad with Mantle rookies, but everybody learned from that and they're all running the same hustle, hoarding cards in the hopes that they will appreciate. . Also, as mentioned, the million different sets overwhelm the market. It was enough to have Topps, Fleer and Donruss, then it got out of hand. now it's all just worthless cardboard, even more so than when your dad was collecting them. They will never appreciate to any significant degree.

^This.

We have reached a saturation point with collectibles, and it's not just cards, it'e everything... People noticed that many old items, especially if they were branded, were worth a lot of money. So, people started col ...

Also, there is an assumption that the best time to sell collectibles is some far-off time in the future, when the item will surely become more scarce. That's simply not the case.

Example 1: Ken Griffey, Jr. 1989 Upper deck rookie card. That card's peak price has already come and gone. Even if Griffey is clean of steroids, and even if he is remembered as one of the greats, and even if baseball cards recover in value, this card will never reach the ridiculous price it was demanding in the early 1990's.

Example 2: The "Death of Superman" comic book. People waited in long lines outside stores to buy this comic when it came out, thinking it would be a collectible. Well, there was one major problem. People believed a limited number of quantities were available, and the stores didn't do anything to dissuade that notion. So, the comic sold out in record time. A few days after the comic sold out, the rest of the prints made it to stores. A sea of them, actually. Thousands. Tens of thousands. The price for that comic book peaked in the 48-72 hours after the initial sell-out, but before the rest of the prints hit shelves. That comic will never be worth as much as it was for those 2-3 days.

Collectibles aren't always long-term investments. Like stocks, they can peak at unexpected times. You better know what you're doing before you start buying.

ongbok:DrBrownCow: Igor Jakovsky: The most expensive one I ever had was a '89 Ken Griffey Jr Upper Deck card. I collected when I was a kid in the '80s. My favorite player back then was Roger Clemens, I bet I had 50 of his early cards. I guess I picked the wrong horse to hitch that wagon too.

/Upper Deck was the shiat back in the day.

I was collecting at about the same time. I had a few of those Upper Deck Griffey Jr. cards and sold all but one of them for 50 dollars each ungraded. I wish I could say I took the money and invested it, but at the time I was in graduate school and needed gas money to drive home and see my girlfriend.

Those 80s and early 90s cards aren't worth jack. Most people won't even take them for free. I had about 20,000 cards. I went through them with a price guide, cherry picked the best cards and put them into one 5 inch binder. The rest of the cards I set out in a box in my alley the day before junk collection day and somebody took them.

And just for that reason when your grand kids are around 10 or twelve those 80's and 90's card will now be rare and worth some good money. And when you tell your grand kids that you had about 20k of them and threw them out, they will ready to kick your old ass.

Things are different now. That was true when it was your dad with Mantle rookies, but everybody learned from that and they're all running the same hustle, hoarding cards in the hopes that they will appreciate. . Also, as mentioned, the million different sets overwhelm the market. It was enough to have Topps, Fleer and Donruss, then it got out of hand. now it's all just worthless cardboard, even more so than when your dad was collecting them. They will never appreciate to any significant degree.

dave2198:MatrixOutsider: You can also thank Ebay Topps for flooding the market with cards and lowering their value. Whatever happened to Renata Galasso anyway?

FTFY.

The problem isn't eBay, the problem is that every card from the 80's and 90's were heavily mass produced compared to older cards. This, combined with everybody being aware of their potential value and holding onto them, has meant a gluttony of cards from that era have survived in mint condition.

True, but Ebay forced people to sell at wholesale prices to compete with other sellers. Selling became convenient, and it became a buyer's market. In the past, you had to take an ad out in the paper to sell cards, so you could charge higher prices.

styckx:When I was I found 3 tobacco cards under the wood floors in the attic of our house (house is 110 years old).. Completely worthless as rot and mice had their way with them over the years they were up there (god knows how long).. The bulk of the card was there, player still viewable, name still barely readable.. But simply worthless. Chunks missings, spots everywhere, corners gone. Was cool though as a kid.. Think I sold them for a garbage pail kids complete series.

The person you sold them to probably turned around and sold them to a collector for a very nice piece of change. Even if they are rotting, chewed up and falling apart, cards from the early 1900's and before are still worth a nice deal of money.